Lifesaving for Beginners

by Ciara Geraghty

  ‘I heard you’d lost your nerve. Since Razor Bill. I heard he cut you pretty bad.’

  Darker tightened his grip on the gun. ‘I’m lookin’ for a reason to pull this trigger, Spencer. Go ahead. It won’t take much.’

  CHRIST! DELETEDELETEDELETE.

  And there it was again. The blank screen. Page one of one. I bang the lid of the laptop down. Again. Shove it into the bag and push the bag under the desk until I can’t see it anymore.

  I get up. Put on my coat. Outside, the cold is shocking. So are the fairy lights. And the stars. And the lit-up Santas. It shouldn’t be Christmas. It’s only November.

  And yet somehow it is.

  I get in my car. My beautiful car. I love everything about it. It even smells the same as the last one. I bought the exact same air freshener. I turn the key and the engine engages with its low hum. I check the mirrors and get going. I love driving. People said I would be nervous, getting back behind the wheel. I forced myself not to think about it.

  In the supermarket, I’m back in the express lane. Ten items or less. A net of satsumas. One large tub of low-fat natural yoghurt. A packet of Jacob’s Cream Crackers. A triangle of Brie. One bag of porridge oats. A bottle of red wine. A family-size pepperoni pizza and a frozen stick of garlic bread.

  Music pours like rain into the lift back to the car park. Christmas music. ‘Joy to the World’. Some marketing person came up with that idea. Told the MD that playing Christmas songs in the shop and the lift and the car park and the toilets would make people buy more tinsel and baubles and ribbons and wrapping paper. I’d love to take to the speaker with something hard. The garlic bread, maybe.

  Minnie is going to her Yoga for Pregnancy class, then home to cook dinner with Maurice. They got a new fish kettle that they’re pretty excited about.

  Ed said I could go to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two with him and Sophie but I said no. Things will have to get much worse before I agree to tag along on a date with my brother and his girlfriend. He said, ‘There’s another letter for you. It looks the same as the first one.’ It’s unusual for the college to do mailshots at this time of the year. They usually wait till the new year, when people are desperate for a change. I make a mental note to ring the college on Monday morning and tell them to stop writing to me. I don’t know why I bother making a mental note because, even as I make it, I know I’ll never do it. Minnie says it’s because I’m disorganised and slovenly. She doesn’t mean it as an insult. Just as a matter of fact. I couldn’t agree more.

  Thomas is probably playing Grey’s Anatomy with Sarah or Sandra or Sorcha or whateverhernameis.

  I turn on all the lights in the apartment. Even the lamp in the spare room, which is really Ed’s room. I turn on the oven. Switch on the telly. Nothing on. I mute it. Put on the radio. A Christmas song. ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’. I switch the station. ‘Joy to the Fecking World’. I turn off the radio.

  I don’t quite make it to the end of the family-size pepperoni, but I nearly do. Enough to do a fair bit of damage on the scales tomorrow. I manage to finish the wine, though. I realise this as I lift the bottle to pour another glass. I light a cigarette. I’m not supposed to smoke in the apartment. I made up that rule myself. It seems silly now. I’ll catch my death out on the balcony, I tell myself. Besides, it’s Friday night, I tell myself. And it’s only me here. Not like the pot plants are going to die of second-hand cigarette smoke, are they? Although they don’t look at their best, to be honest. Thomas bought them all. He said, ‘Aloe vera –’ when I touched an odd, spiky-looking one ‘– great for sunburn and pimples.’

  I said, ‘I don’t have pimples.’

  He broke the top off one of the stems, poured a sticky substance onto his fingers, rubbed them together and put them under my nose. I stepped back.

  ‘Smell,’ he said. I sniffed perfunctorily.

  Thomas said, ‘See?’

  I nodded and allowed him to smear a bit on my neck. It didn’t feel sticky. In fact, it wasn’t all that unpleasant, to be honest. It even smelled a bit like the aloe vera cream in the bathroom. Thomas undid the buttons on my shirt. Expertly. With the fingers of one hand. Like he’d done it a hundred times before he met me. And perhaps he had. We never told each other our tales.

  I said, ‘Eh, excuse me. What are you doing?’

  He didn’t look up. Just continued unbuttoning and then he unhooked my bra. One of those ones that opened at the front, which he called ‘handy’. He didn’t do anything for a moment. Just looked at them. My nipples were like football studs. Then he said, ‘Aloe vera is especially effective on sunburn.’ He said it as if he were reading it out from the Farmers Journal. Matter-of-fact.

  ‘But I’m not sunburned.’

  ‘I’m merely demonstrating.’

  Anyway, the aloe vera plant is dead now. And it’s not the only one. The one that used to have pale purple flowers has the decayed look of the long, long departed. Ditto the herbs on the windowsill. Basil and something that begins with a C. Coriander, maybe.

  The phone rings.

  The noise is huge in the quiet of the apartment. I walk into the hall. I might have drunk too much. My shoulders glance off the walls.

  It takes ages to reach the phone. The hall seems longer than usual. The phone keeps ringing. I pick it up. ‘Hello?’

  Nothing.

  ‘Who’s there?’

  I hear someone breathing. This is when I’m supposed to hang up. But the wine has me cosseted like a suit of armour.

  I say, ‘I know who you are.’ See what he makes of that.

  It works, because he speaks. After weeks of ringing up and saying nothing, he finally speaks. It is a man. A man with an English accent. His voice is low-pitched. He enunciates each word, like an elocution lesson.

  ‘And I know who you are, Kat Kavanagh.’

  My heart hammers in my chest. The kitchen door creaks in a draught and I jump. The hallway seems darker than before. I press the phone against my ear until it hurts.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I try to keep a grip on my voice but it sounds shaky. Like I’m afraid.

  ‘But then again, everybody knows who you are, don’t they, Kat? Or should I say, Killian?’ His voice is lower now. Almost a whisper.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I think you do.’

  ‘Don’t ring this number again.’

  ‘How’s book ten coming along, Kat?’

  I hang up. My legs shake. Everything shakes. I sit on the floor. I sit there for a long time. Thomas was right about the tiles. They are cold. I sit there until it passes. The need to phone Thomas is huge. It’s been there before but never like this.

  I sit on my hands.

  I don’t ring Minnie. She won’t be surprised. She’ll say, ‘You can’t hide forever, Kat.’ She’s said that before.

  ‘I know who you are.’ The voice was sure of itself. There was no doubt. Only conviction. I check the Caller ID. This time, the number comes up as ‘blocked’. I replace the phone on the cradle. Pull the lead out of the wall. Tuck my hands back under my legs.

  I’ve been so careful. Nobody could have been more careful than me.

  I’m sober now. An entire bottle of wine and I’m sober already. That’s bad value. I get up slowly. My legs are stiff. I hobble to the kitchen and lift the blind to look out of the window. The streetlamp gutters and in the flickering orange light I can see it’s been raining. The street is empty.

  I get into bed with my clothes on and a full face of make-up. The electric blanket is on but it takes ages to warm up. I turn the light off and the darkness advances like something solid, surrounding me on all sides.

  ‘I know who you are.’ I believed him when he said it. He sounds like someone who knows things. He sounds like someone who knows everything.

  I sit up and switch on the light.

  I open my laptop. Press the button. Open the document. There it is again. The blank screen. Page one of one.<
br />
  It was difficult to see. The dark was thick. Penetrating. Darker couldn’t even make out shadows. Outlines. Nothing. It was the kind of dark that suggested it may never be light again.

  This time I don’t read it before I press Delete.

  Delete.

  Delete.

  Delete.

  Faith says, ‘No, Milo. You can’t come to Ireland with me. You just can’t.’ She’s organising her clothes into piles on her bed. She says she’s only going for two days but from all the piles of clothes you’d think she was going for two weeks. Her dress is on the top of the ‘to be washed’ pile. Faith calls it her all-weather dress because you can wear it in spring, summer, autumn and winter. She never goes anywhere without it.

  I say, ‘Why can’t I come?’

  Faith says, ‘Because . . . well, there’s school for a start.’

  ‘I won’t be missing much. And I can catch up when I get back. And besides, I’m doing really well in all my subjects.’ This is not exactly true. We did fractions last week. I got seven-and-a-half out of ten. Dividing an apple tart into sixteen bits is harder than you’d think.

  Faith takes her favourite jeans out of the wardrobe.

  I say, ‘You can’t take those. They’re too big on you now.’

  Faith says, ‘I’ll wear a belt.’ She folds them. Mam ironed our clothes, but Faith says folding is just as good.

  I say, ‘I’m not going to Dad’s.’

  ‘You don’t have to. Dad’s coming here.’

  ‘He can’t. The baby might come when he’s not there.’

  ‘The baby’s not due till the end of December, for God’s sake.’ Adults have an answer for everything.

  ‘When are you going?’

  ‘I’ve booked a flight for the day after tomorrow.’ She tousles my hair. ‘I’ll be back before you know it.’

  ‘That’s a lot of clothes for two days.’

  Faith smiles. ‘It’s Ireland. You never know what the weather’s going to do.’

  ‘I don’t want you to go to Ireland.’

  ‘Nothing bad is going to happen to me, I promise.’

  Mam promised too, but I don’t say that to Faith.

  ‘Your birth mother mightn’t live at that address anymore. Maybe she moved.’

  ‘I have to go, Milo. I’ve explained why.’

  When I was a kid, I could make myself cry. If I wanted to go somewhere. Or I wanted a chocolate mint Cornetto, which happens to be my favourite type of Cornetto. Damo says it’s weird to like mint, on account of it being a green. His mam put a mint leaf into a salad once. Damo hates salad.

  I can’t make myself cry now. And even if I could, I don’t think it would work. Faith would just laugh and call me a cry-baby.

  I’ll have to think of something else.

  Minnie’s not two steps into the apartment when she says, ‘There’s a guy.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’s the financial controller of this company we’re working with at the moment.’

  ‘The company you’re taking over? In a hostile manner?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, he mustn’t be very good at his job.’

  ‘Not the point.’ Minnie’s in the living room now, looking at the couch. There’s a pizza box on it. Lines of cards; I’ve taken to Solitaire recently. Last Sunday’s papers. A pair of shoes. Minnie moves the pizza box to the table and sits down. She says, ‘I don’t know how you can live like this.’

  ‘It’s great. There’s virtually no cleaning up to be done.’

  She withers me with one of her looks. It’s a good one. I’m thinking about getting the Hoover out when she’s gone. The thought is slight. Remote. But it’s there, which is an improvement.

  Minnie says, ‘Anyway, the guy. He’s set to make a mint out of this transaction. Plus, he’s attractive. Divorced. No kids. Good head of hair.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m ringing him.’ She grabs her phone out of her bag.

  I think about grabbing it and running away but then dismiss the thought. There’s no point. Not with Minnie.

  She punches in a number. Lifts the phone to her ear. Says, ‘It’s ringing.’

  ‘Hang up. Right now.’

  ‘Dammit. Voicemail.’ She hangs up.

  I breathe out. ‘Do you want something to drink?’ and she gives me daggers so I say, ‘I meant tea. Or coffee. A cold drink?’

  ‘Coffee is giving me heartburn.’

  ‘Tea, then?’

  ‘It’s giving me the trots.’

  ‘I have Coke and 7UP.’

  ‘I can’t drink fizzy anymore. It’s giving me nightmares.’

  ‘How about some water.’

  ‘Sparkling or still?’

  ‘Whichever.’

  ‘Well, I can’t have sparkling because . . .’

  ‘Still, then.’ I beat a retreat into the kitchen.

  Minnie follows me. She says, ‘How’s the book coming along?’

  ‘Did Brona put you up to this?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The book is coming along fine.’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘Do you want ice in your water?’

  ‘Yes, and a sprig of mint.’ I love that about Minnie. That she thinks this is the type of apartment where one might chance upon a sprig of mint. Although one might, if Thomas still lived here. He had a little herb garden going on, out on the balcony, back in the day.

  I make myself tea and hand Minnie her water. I spill a packet of Jammie Dodgers onto a plate. We sit down.

  Minnie says, ‘It’s time, Kat.’

  ‘It’s not time.’

  ‘Yes it is. You can’t stay here, pretending to write a book, for the rest of your life.’

  ‘I’m not pretending. I’m busy, as it happens. Very busy. That’s why the place is a little . . . messy.’

  Minnie says, ‘A little messy? I’ve seen playrooms that are tidier than your apartment.’

  All her analogies involve kids now. In some form or another.

  Minnie says, ‘You need to start dating again.’

  ‘I hate dating.’

  ‘Not every man rates bog snorkelling as a date, you know.’

  That makes me smile. ‘We never went bog snorkelling, in the end.’

  ‘A lucky escape.’

  ‘I got sick. I couldn’t go.’

  ‘Proper sick? Or pretending sick?’

  ‘Proper sick.’

  ‘I can’t believe you were even thinking about going bog snorkelling.’

  That was the thing about Thomas. He made everything sound easy. Feasible. Even the idea of me squeezing my way into a smelly wetsuit and forcing myself down a hole in the ground in a bog in Athlone didn’t sound as crazy as it should. Not when Thomas said it.

  Minnie looks at her watch. ‘I have to go. I’m meeting Maurice in town. There’s some seminar on breastfeeding he wants us to go to. I said I didn’t think he had the tits for it, but there you go.’

  When Minnie’s gone, I sit on the space on the couch where the pizza box used to be. I’m not thinking about hoovering anymore. I’m thinking about that day. The bog snorkelling day.

  I didn’t even ring him to cancel. That’s how sick I was. It was only when he rang the buzzer that I remembered. I crawled out of bed and answered the phone. I said, ‘I can’t go bog snorkelling. I’m sick.’

  ‘Ah, you cray-thur. Let me up till I get a look at you.’ Thomas had a way of talking about me as if I was a heifer that he was thinking about buying at a mart.

  ‘I’m probably contagious.’

  ‘I haven’t been sick since 1972. I’ll take my chances.’

  ‘What did you have in 1972?’

  ‘Let me up and I’ll tell you.’

  I pressed the buzzer and, for the first time since I’d known him, I didn’t do my usual dash around the apartment, kicking plates under the couch and hiding my face under a ton of make-up. That was how sick I was. Instead, I leaned against the door and waited the sixty seco
nds.

  ‘What did you have in 1972?’ I asked when he arrived.

  ‘Anaphylactic shock.’

  ‘Impressive,’ I said. ‘What are you allergic to?’

  ‘Bee stings.’

  ‘That’s pretty serious,’ I couldn’t help saying.

  ‘You look worried,’ he said, chuffed with himself.

  ‘I’m not, it’s just . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, even though I wasn’t worried. ‘I’ve an antidote in the car. Besides, bees sting only if they feel threatened.’

  He bent to examine my face. ‘So what’s wrong with you?’

  ‘Tummy bug.’ It sounded pretty lame when you compared it to anaphylactic shock.

  ‘You’ve got a temperature,’ he told me, clamping one of his massive hands across my forehead. The coolness of his skin was delicious. I allowed myself to sag a little, against the door.

  ‘Come here to me,’ he said, and before I could say, ‘Diarrhoea and vomit,’ he had me up in his arms, like I was a doll.

  He put me in bed and made me weak tea and dry toast. He even emptied the bucket beside my bed. He drew the curtains and checked on me every ten minutes or so.

  I said, ‘You don’t have to stay.’

  He said, ‘I know.’ But he stayed anyway.

  Later, I lay on the couch. I felt much better but I didn’t tell Thomas that. I was reluctant to relinquish the feeling I had. It felt like I’d spent the last twelve months running and running and then, just for that day, just because I was sick, I stopped. I surrendered. I was appalled at how good it felt.

  You’re not yourself when you’re sick.

  Thomas sat on the couch. He picked up one of my feet and began to knead it with his fingers. I tried to pull it out of his hands. ‘I haven’t had a shower today,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve been elbow-deep in ewes in the lambing season,’ he told me proudly. ‘I can handle smelly feet.’

  ‘I didn’t say they were smelly.’

  ‘You didn’t have to.’

  ‘Besides, you only have one ewe. You can hardly call that a lambing season.’

  ‘She’s a pretty fertile ewe – I can call it what I like.’

  ‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ he asked later, when we were supposed to be watching the telly.